


The House that Jack Built

by Spocksandshoes



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Amnesia, Angry Kissing, Dysfunctional Relationships, Grumpy Old Men, Love/Hate, M/M, Old Feelings, Recovered Memories, Star-crossed, mild body horror, trapped together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 10:43:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8202571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spocksandshoes/pseuds/Spocksandshoes
Summary: Gabriel Reyes haunted him with the life he never had, churro-flavoured kisses and being whole.





	

A lot of people who saw him seemed to assume that Reaper was trying too hard, that this 'death' business was all bullshit and under the mask he was some moody teenager who listened to too much death metal and thought that he looked cool in a cross between a Grim Reaper cloak and an owl mask.

In truth, under the mask, Reaper didn't know who he was.

He'd read the files. Gabriel Reyes. Blackwatch Operative. Born in Los Angeles to Mexican Parents. He KNEW the facts, but Gabriel Reyes was a suit he wore, for lack of an identity. He didn't KNOW Gabriel Reyes, couldn't connect with any of those words on paper anymore.  
All he had were feelings. He remembered feelings with no context. Sometimes a smell would make him stop and strain for a connection, but when that never worked, he stopped trying.

He studied Gabriel Reyes, the mask he put on to make it seem like there was someone inside of this hollow mess of decaying and healing tissue, and found out that he was fluent in Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian, some other languages were on the list too.  
He liked to wear his facial hair in a neatly-trimmed goatee and keep his hair tightly cropped.  
There was one memory he had. A proper, something like a memory. 

_He had opened his eyes and screamed, and screamed, and screamed. There was a pristine white ceiling above him and a hazy blonde halo of hair surrounding a pale face._  
The flesh had felt like it was being seared off, like how hydrogen freezes warts away. So cold it burned, and it was eating him up. He screamed til the cold worked up into his throat and his voice stuttered and gave out.  
A familiar voice was swearing in German. But he could no longer remember when him and a Dr. Ziegler had ever known each other enough for her voice to be familiar to him. 

The carefully preserved photos had him standing with an Egyptian woman, a man in a cowboy hat, a small bearded square of a man, what looked like a cyborg and a giant, among others. An eclectic bunch, and he had read all their files. Ana Amari. Close friends of Gabriel. Previously considered dead. Jesse McCree, protege of Gabriel Reyes, recruited on a mission in the American south. Lena Oxton. Winston. Reinhardt.  
He had accessed Talon databases on each of these people exactly twice. Three times with Ana Amari.  
The file on Jack Morrison had been accessed 32 times. He knew the words by heart now. 

The words never changed, but he read them over and over again, like the way a tongue is drawn to the strange rawness of a gum missing its tooth. Jack Morrison. 

Jack Morrison.

Reaper stood at the control desk, the bright blues flickering from the screen. Everything else was in darkness, like he preferred.  
Jack Morrison.  
A talon idly tapped on the desk. 

***

The blast caught him in the shoulder and he staggered. It didn't hurt- nothing did anymore- but he could feel the black smoke trail behind him as he moved. Another blast, to the same shoulder. He was taking fire faster than he could recover. Widowmaker had disappeared, ever the opportunist. And the Talon agents were down. But he could escape.  
A man with a bow crept along a ledge, up above him and to the right. The tak-tak-tak of his metal boots on the railings sounded like the ticking of a clock.  
Ahead was a muscle-bound woman with pink hair. The gun she held probably weighed more than she did. Two figures circled overhead. The new Overwatch. 

He could almost feel the crosshairs on the back of his neck, and he coughed out a short, sharp laugh,  
_Go ahead, Ana. Jack already killed me. It's about time you had a go too._

He kept going, doggedly. The shotgun jumped in his hand and a flash of red serape and a shouted curse meant that he'd hit the ingrate. A flash of light and Dr.Ziegler was reviving the man with a grace she hadn't seen fit to use on Gabriel Reyes.  
Another shot. Sparks scraped off the pink exterior of a squat mecha, and the girl inside shrieked. It sounded like anger more than fear.  
A few more steps. A few more..

They were closing in, circling around. Faces he knew from the photos. A small chubby woman in outer gear. A ratty soot-faced man with a fake leg and a his masked, fat companion. More and more of them, they gathered closer, flanking him, closing in slowly and drawing him out into the open like a splinter from a wound.  
He knew Morrison was behind him even before he said a damn thing. He'd always know how Morrison worked. Memory or not, he would forever be better than the man who made him into... this.  
Who left him to become what he was.

He could feel the black smoke fizz in the light, the way his chest was cracked down the middle and an elbow was awkwardly hanging in a way that told him it had been shattered. He couldn't feel it, but it did slow him down. His body was on the edge of reforming, and he couldn't let that happen here. Not in the bright crowded square surrounded by his enemies.

Pulling the last vestiges of strength up from his boots, Reaper shadow-stepped.  
"Don't let him get away!'' They scrambled to pin him before he disappeared, but he pushed ahead, forcing his body to slip down into the concrete and away.  
He felt Jack collide with him, and then the shadows took them both, sinking him into darkness. He didn't care where he stepped too- just that he was away. Somewhere to regenerate his damaged body.  
There was a second in blissful nothingness- what death must feel like, he thought with a certain sense of longing- and then his boots clacked off a solid metal floor.

He folded, hitting the floor with a grunt. It was hard to hold this form now, the tug was always there to drift away, to loose his grip on this form and drift away in shapeless clouds of nothing. He hauled it back, shoving at the heavy weight on his back. It fell away, and he heard a surprised sound as Jack pulled back. The familiar shuffle of a weapon being pulled happened overhead, and Gabe tried to notice it.  
The cold was setting in. Dead, chilled sweat leaked from his half-dead body, as his limbs sloughed away to dust in his leathers, and formed anew, locked in a constant battle of life and death. The wounds had him dying faster than the ...whatever that German witch had done to him- could heal him.

No. Healing was what she did to her new Overwatch pets. Reanimating was what had happened to him.  
The cold was worse than pain, in crept into the very marrow of him, freezing him from the core out. His body couldn't heal. But it could discard the old parts and reform new ones, and the cold where a missing part of himself should be was the worst of all.  
Shivering, shaking on the floor like a child, surrounded by that black smoke, tendrils creeping out of every crack and line in his suit, Gabe screamed like he had the first time. He didn't fear death, but the cold emptiness of unbeing was somehow the most terrifying thing in the world. He wanted to die, yes. But he didn't want to not exist. 

His left leg spasmed. His elbow cracked, reforming from the inside out. A new body that was rotting faster than it could be formed. Entropy in action.

It was over when he found himself lying on the floor, whole again. He gasped for air through lungs that didn't need to breathe, and let himself relish in the feeling of not feeling like death for a few seconds.  
Oh, right. Morrison was there and had a gun in his face.

He went to sit up, and the mask slipped from his face with a creak. He caught it and jammed it back into place, not in the mood to look weaker than he just had. Soldier 76 was standing stock-still, his visor a red stripe in the darkness. It took Gabe til then to notice that it was dark- extremely so. They were in a pitch-black space.

''Reyes.'' Morrison breathed after an age, his face angled to stare at the gap in the mask where for a second, the void had leaked through. Reaper chose not to answer, and pushed himself to his feet, decidedly not looking at Morrison.  
The door was not opening. It was a heavy-set titanium sort of deal, the type you'd see in vault doors in banks. The type of places McCree would boast about robbing, back when they were young and full of piss and vinegar.  
Reaper would have liked to say that he remembered that, but no. It was on the file.

''What is this place?'' Morrison's gun was still trained on him, but the man was looking around. It would be so easy to recreate Switzerland here. Reapers claws twitched at the thought of wrapping them around Morrisons throat. He'd kill Morrison or Morrison would kill him. Either way, he won.  
''Do I look like I know that?'' He drawled, and was treated by a disgruntled old man grunt from the other side of the room.

''So you shadow-stepped us to somewhere you didn't even know.''  
Reaper didn't bother answering. The room was small and compact, with a door to the left and right respectively. From what he could see, it had been an abandoned part of the facility. Perhaps secret. They had been in Russia after all, maybe this was a part of the Omnic production line.  
A burst of static. Jack was radioing it in.  
''-Soldier 76. Come in- Affirmative. Location unclear, Reaper is here. Non-aggressive. Some..bunker of some kind. Understood. Over and out.''  
He huffed and dropped his hand from his ear, looking around the room. He rapped on the walls, a resounding muffled thud, and the red glow of his targeting visor lit up the small space showing the room in infrared.

 

''So. You waiting for your moment to strike?''  
''I could ask you the same question.'' Reaper trailled through every inch of the adjoining rooms. Some old omnic parts in one- first gen by the looks of things- and the other had caved in.  
''I should kill you.'' Jacks voice sounded like it was trying to wrestle up that anger from somewhere, but he sounded tired instead.  
''For Switzerland.''

''You did.'' 

There was a profoundly awkward silence. Morrison sighed from the other room.  
''This.. thing you are now...''

'' Dr. Ziegler's monster? Ah yes, you're wondering what I am. You're thinking you should put a bullet in my head and end my suffering. Don't bother. I've tried.''

''Gabriel.'' Jacks' voice was almost pained, and Gabriel felt something tighten in his void of a chest.  
''Don't call me that.''

Gabriel Reyes was a costume. He was a man with his fathers skin-tone and his mothers eyes and his grandfathers laugh. He was sweat and dedication and the grim determination to do what most people would balk at, in order to get the job done. He was loud laughs and swearing every second word and touching people constantly. A pat on the back, a squeeze on the shoulder. He was near unapproachable in the mornings and downright rude to those he didn't like, and he was ambitious and passionate and he had a big heart and he loved so much it felt like it was bursting from him sometimes.  
He was a real, tangible human being, and to be called Gabriel Reyes felt like an insult.  
It felt like Jack was mocking what he couldn't be any more, and a tight knot of hatred lodged sharp in his throat.

There was a burst of static and Jack tapped his comm. Reaper could hear the clack from the other room.  
''Understood. No, it's... under control. Over and out.''  
Jack appeared at the door. ''We're thirty feet under solid titanium alloy. This used to be a part of the facility but it's blacked out on all scans. It'll be a while before they reach us.''  
''Mm.''  
''You teleported here. Why not teleport out?''

Yes Jack, because he hadn't fucking thought of that.  
''Not strong enough.''  
He thought maybe Jack was disappointed for a second, hoping for something else, but there was an indifferent shrug and Jack turned away.  
''Then we're stuck here. Don't try anything.''

As if he'd bother.

***

The hours were long . Gabe was shaking. He needed to rest, but Jack was a stripe of red in the dark, ever vigilant, watching and waiting.

''Could really do with a Chew-row about now.'' 

''A what.'' Reaper didn't -shouldn't have engaged, but fuck it, if Morrison wanted to chirp, the least he could gain from it was some information. At the very least Morrison might say something worth knowing.  
''A chew-row. You know.'' Morrison was looking at him, and even though his face was covered, he was definitely expectant.  
''Pastry with this chocolate thing inside. Powdered sugar over the top.''

_''A churro, you dumbass.'' The day was baking on the promenade. His tshirt clung to him, damp with sweat. Jack leaned against the wooden railings and staring over the quaint little town peir, at the boats bobbing hazy and slow on the waters. He held a paper-wrapped pastry in his hand, a smear of chocolate on his teeth when he smiled. A real honest, farmboy smile. It sat easily on him, even though he was pushing 30 and he was too scarred and broad to look boyish. ''Thats what I'm saying. Chew-row.''_  
Gabe rolled his eyes. His grandmother would roll in her grave if she heard her language be desecrated like this.  
''Churro.'' He corrected, a rich throaty rumble that slid over the R's, and Jack grinned to himself, leaning closer and nudging his shoulder. ''You gonna teach me how to do that one of these days?'' 

Reaper forced himself not to move. Not a muscle. That was a memory from Reyes' life, not his, but it didn't stop him from tasting the rich chocolate, the hot drip of oil, the salt air.  
Morrison was waiting, testing the waters, and Reaper was sure that he wanted him to correct him, just to let him know that there was a little peice of Gabriel Reyes still left in there.  
He couldn't. Intel be damned. Reaper shrugged his shoulders. Morrison sighed and stared back at the opposite wall.  
The hours ticked on by. Sitting against opposite sides of the room.  
Overwatch radioed in to check on Jack. Reaper examined his guns.

***

''What happened earlier.'' Jack tried again, three hours later. His heavy weapon still lay propped against his knees. ''The smoke.. whats the matter with you?''

''The matter.'' Reaper tilted his head towards Jack. ''Is that you killed me.''  
To his credit, Jack looked away.

''Dr.Zeigler made me into this. I die as fast as I heal. I'm stuck like this.''

''And the corspes people have found after you?''  
Ah, the shrivelled, dried husks.

''A man has to eat.''  
''Jesus, Gabe.''  
''No, he's not here.''

''Jesus or Gabe?'' It was meant to try and force some humor into a bad situation, but Reaper shrugged and spread his hands. Take your pic.

***

They raided the old containers and Jack found omnic parts and dead spiders. Reaper found shipping manifestos and old dust. They rummaged in silence, side by side, whittling away the hours.  
''I don't remember being Gabriel Reyes.'' He knew he shouldn't have said anything. But he was tired. And older.  
And tired of carrying this old hate that wasn't even his. He could feel Jack pause, the quiet intake of breath, the mans sharp gaze on him. But from the sounds of it, Jack had stopped rummaging altogether.

''Then why do you hate me?''

''Because I don't have anything else.''

Jack reached up and removed his mask. He looked older, scarred with a stripe of raw skin that ran up over his skin and striped his aging face. It pulled his lips back into a scarred, disfigured snarl. Gabe knew that scar. He had given it to him.

_He was pinned. The shattered glass crunched under him as Jack slammed him into the ground. Something was burning behind them. People shouting behind a locked door. A fist glanced off his jaw and he tasted blood. Something cracked. A molar.  
''Stand down!'' Jack was shouting, like Gabe was one of his little soldiers, going to quietly fall back into line. His fingers curved around a slice of the broken glass and at the next available opportunity, he slashed it across Jack's face. The spray of blood was hot and disgusting. _

''You don't remember.'' Something had changed in Jacks voice, and he sat forward, hunched like a bird of prey. ''Anything.''  
''Sometimes.'' Reaper shrugged. ''Bits and pieces.''  
No, that was a lie. He'd only had one memory before today. Now he had three. Jack was bringing them back, teasing piece by piece from his mind.

''You don't remember me.''

Reapers fingers twitched towards his mouth. Jack's mouth had tasted of churros, that day on the promenade. They had been going somewhere, stopping off to stretch their legs in the sunny seaside town. They had been going somewhere with the taste of apple pie and the smell of a bonfire out under the stars and warm hairy legs tangled in an attic room under too heavy-quilts.  
The new memories crowded around him, taunting him with their impossibility. He had been whole, and human, and loved.  
Or loved conditionally. Jack had left him to die, he reminded himself.

''I remember that Jack Morrison loves you til you don't fall in line. Then he beats the shit out of you and leaves you for dead.'' That had burst from nowhere, chosen because he had the sudden, savage need to see Jack hurt. 

Jack's scarred face twisted into an ugly scowl. The anger wasn't so much brimming at the surface as oozing out of every pore. He didn't say a word, just lunged, tackling Reaper to the ground.  
A gloved fist caught him in the midriff and he shook Jack by the lapels of that stupid jacket, smacking his head against the floor with a dull thump. Jack grunted, throwing up a leg to knock Gabe sideways and they rolled, grappling, across the floor of their prison.  
Gabriel knocked Jack's arms out from under him, rearing up and head-butting him right between the eyes. A hand grasped for Gabriel's throat and his claws alighted around it, slicing into the skin, but Jack kept him pinned, the threat of squeezing in his strong fingers. Breathing heavily, Jack leaned down til he was eye-to-eye with Reaper. His breath fogged the eyeglass on the mask.  
''Fuck you, Reyes.''  
Jack's old, scarred face was twisted into a snarl, angry and strong and defiant as he ever was. The rock in the storm, only somehow he'd become scarred and battered over time. No longer a safe haven, but a jagged jut of rock that was more a danger than a help. He looked older, and tired, and hurt. There was something raw in his voice that couldn't have been anything else but sadness.  
Reaper suddenly felt a jerk of nostalgia. For a life he might have had.

It lasted for a full second before Jack grasped his Mask and ripped it from his face.

His face. The last shred of proof that there was nothing of Gabriel Reyes left.  
The mask was yanked up, and the stagnant air hit his skin. He could hear Jack push out an exhale. The sort a soldier would do when faced with a calamity they couldn't react to.

He went for the mask, scrambling for it, but Jack still weighed him down. He was staring.  
Wisps of the black smoke wafted from his skin, from his hollow nasal cavity, from the sunken sockets where his eyes were. The skin that was left was a mottled Frankenstein of tone and texture, that melted and firmed and rotted and healed in a never-ending loop, spewing that black smoke like his skin was breathing it out. So much that his face was barely viable. A smoking, void of a face, with flashes of dead skin and bright, inhuman eyes.

''I fucking told you.''

''Gabe.'' Jack says, and for a second he sounds so tender, so broken, that Gabe nearly breaks with him.

 

 _''This is the priest all shaven and shorn.''  
Fingers scrubbed through his hair, his freshly shaved scalp tingled as a large, warm hand rested there. The deep, teasing voice was at his shoulder, and he ducked to swat the hand away. And a mouth snuck in to press a stubbly kiss to his cheek. _ He had been a person then.

Reaper misted away, fading from the scene. He materialised in the next room, and Jack didn't go after him.  
Men didn't chase monsters to comfort them.  
Gabriel Reyes haunted him with the life he never had, churro-flavoured kisses and being whole.


End file.
